


Sanctuary

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Freeform, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22768690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: Mark and Johnny go out for drives in a car that fans don't know Johnny owns.In between comebacks, Mark falls in love.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 68
Kudos: 467





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jokheiz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jokheiz/gifts), [nakimdoyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nakimdoyu/gifts), [PrittlePrince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrittlePrince/gifts), [Cleonhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleonhart/gifts).



> Hello, I am back with something that I drabbled for about four hours. This is completely unbeta'd, just something I started typing on Tele to Mel and Ain, thinking about the Neo Zone teasers and them being in a car. 
> 
> Mel said, "I CAN JUST SEE JOHNMARK SITTING ON THE HOOD OF THE CAR LOOKING OVER THE CITY OR SOMESHIT" and then I just rolled with it. So yeah, this is for Mel and for Ain, as well as Ceebs and Dia, who always indulge my Johnmark bullshit. 
> 
> Nothing much happens in this story, so please don't expect much. This was written mostly to Joji on loop, so I suggest you listen to SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK, Run, and Sanctuary while reading this, especially the last one which the title of this fic is taken from. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought of this, whether it's constructive criticism or to let me know how you felt! Thank you very much. :)

The wind is picking up. 

That’s the first thing that Mark notes when Johnny parks the car and unbuckles his seatbelt. 

He wonders if the varsity jackets they have on will cut it, just as Johnny pulls on the handle and swings the door open on his side.

Mark follows suit, pulling the jacket crossed over his chest and his belly before stepping out. 

Over the ledge, the city glitters below them.

Johnny walks over to the ledge and then looks back at Mark, the faint glow from the singular street lamp near the peak the only source of light up here. 

“You okay, Mark?”

Mark’s nervous, but he tries to steady his voice even if his heart refuses to cooperate.

“Y-yeah, all good,” Mark says, stepping closer to Johnny. “Man, it is _cold_ cold here.” 

Johnny laughs under his breath, and then slings an arm around Mark’s shoulders as he is wont to do, a casual display of affection that Johnny has never really held back from.

The fans don’t know that Johnny has a car, but Mark figures it’s only a matter of time before Dispatch gets wind of it. It’s always so murky, what SM allows them to do and what they keep them from doing. 

It frustrates Mark. 

He’s allowed to talk to Ten and Lucas because he’s in SuperM with them, but 127 can’t mention WayV in any promos. God knows why SuperM is allowed to exist but all 21 of them aren’t allowed to even fucking breathe in the same venue. 

But anyway. 

Fuck it. Johnny has a car, and Johnny invited him out to look out over the city, and that’s why Mark is here— because Johnny asked, and when Johnny asks, Mark is incapable of saying no.

It’s weird. 

It’s weird because Mark’s been making it weird, and Mark figures that’s probably why Johnny asked him to join him tonight so that they could talk uninterrupted and that kind of stresses Mark out but also like, Mark did say yes to coming along, so really, this is on him.

“It’s pretty out here, right?” Johnny says, looking out over the city lights. 

Mark isn’t looking at the city lights. He’s looking at Johnny’s profile. He’s looking at the gentle curve of his lips. He’s looking at Johnny’s sharp jaw. He’s looking at the way Johnny’s nose turns up at the end. 

“Yeah, pretty,” Mark says, absentmindedly.

“Mark,” Johnny says, before turning to look at Mark who he catches off guard. “You’re staring.” 

Mark looks away abruptly and stumbles over his words. 

“S-sorry, uh-“

“What’s going on, dude?”

Johnny’s never, ever really put up with Mark’s bullshit, so this shouldn’t be surprising. On some level, he knows he should have expected this, but he wishes that for once, he’d be wrong.

“Nothing,” Mark tries, and winces at how his voice breaks at the end, just as his mouth forms the “ing”.

Johnny just raises his eyebrow at him.

“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it,” Mark says honestly, and Johnny’s expression softens. 

“Okay, man,” Johnny says, and then presses a kiss to Mark’s temple. “Let’s just hang out and listen to music, then.”

So they do. 

They climb on the hood of Johnny’s second-hand Kia Rio and lean against the windshield while Johnny plays 88Rising from his speakers, and it’s like nothing is weird again because even if Mark makes it weird, Johnny offsets it by just being himself, and Mark feels himself slipping, more and more like he’s on the edge of the cliff they’re parked at, just on the verge of his body crash-landing on the jagged rocks below. 

Isn’t that fucked? That the prospect of Mark being in l-word with his hyung makes him think of death and doom and nothing light or romantic? Mark thinks so, because being an idol, being a kid growing into a man in the public eye does that to you, especially when you realize that you’re a kid who grows into a man who likes other men. Jesus, the public would crucify him.

\---

The next time Johnny invites Mark out for a late-night drive is three weeks later, when they've finished filming most of the videos for their next comeback, and they're lying starfished on the floor after practice. It's 10:30 pm. Their manager purses his lips, but Johnny is charming, and it's with an eye roll and a dejected sigh that they're allowed out, with strict instruction to not spend too long out.

The drive is quiet, and so is Johnny. Mark doesn't mind. He's exhausted, but grateful for the silence. 

The entire month has just been noise, in the practice rooms when Haechan and Doyoung play around; in the kitchen when Yuta and Taeil come out of their room when their dorm aunt tells them that she's made them the galbi jjim they'd been craving; in Mark's head, shoving thoughts away into neat little compartments so that he can function in the daylight.

So over here, in the passenger seat of Johnny’s car, Mark closes his eyes and relishes in the quiet hum of the air conditioning and the _Take Over the Moon_ album playing on loop, music so low Mark can barely hear Lucas’s rap on _Moonwalk_. 

Mark startles when he feels a hand on his neck, but relaxes when he realises it’s just Johnny, running his fingers over the short hair at Mark’s nape, his thumb pressing over the tight muscle over Mark’s shoulder. 

“You okay, Mark?” Johnny asks. They’re three words Mark is used to, but he wonders if his exhaustion and his anxiety are so palpable that it’s got Johnny asking him more and more frequently lately. 

Mark swallows his saliva, clears his throat. 

“Yeah, just tired,” Mark says, sighing. 

Mark knows he’s pushing it again, not sleeping properly, spending too long writing, feeling like he’s running out of time, like he’s fucking Alexander Hamilton and Mark really needs to stop playing Non-Stop on loop. 

“You’re tired all the time, Mark,” Johnny says, but he doesn’t mean to be mean. He says it plainly, like he’s commenting about the weather. “But I know nothing I say will get you to stop, so I’m just telling you to maybe cool it a little, yeah? Leave the writing for when there’s daylight.”

Mark only hums in the bare minimum of agreement, because they both know that Mark is still going to be holing himself up in his room, hunched over his desk or curled up in his bed trying to work through a line or a verse at 2:30 am anyway. 

When they pull up to the peak again, there’s a small scattering of people that are off to the side, drinking. It’s ill-advised, obviously, but Mark hopes they have a designated driver for it. 

Johnny keeps the car running, and makes no move to get out of the car, which is just as well. None of them like to assume their status, but they cannot risk being caught out this late anyway. 

Johnny instead pulls the lever on the side of his seat, the backrest promptly dropping back against the seat behind it so Johnny can lie back and stretch his arms over his head and exhale loudly. 

Mark follows suit. 

“That thing that you weren’t ready to talk about before,” Johnny says with his eyes closed. “Do you think you’re ready to talk about it now?” 

Mark stares at the fuzzy grey lining of the car’s ceiling. His heart thuds painfully fast against his rib cage. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Mark replies. 

“Okay, cool,” Johnny says, eyes still closed. “Do you wanna listen to Childish Gambino?” 

And Mark says yes, so Johnny swipes his phone open, the faint glow from his screen illuminating his irises, his face. Mark wants so badly to just tell him, just blurt it out that he maybe likes men and likes one man in particular and would very much like to know what Johnny’s hands feel around his waist but instead he tells Johnny to play _Les_ from _Camp_ and starting rapping along under his breath, swearing just because he can, just because there aren’t any cameras here. 

It’s just him and Johnny and the blinking city ahead of them. 

—-

Johnny’s in a bad mood. 

Mark doesn’t know what it is, but Johnny’s not talking much, and even if he’s not being outwardly an asshole, his silence when he’s upset is usually a cue for other people to back off. 

Despite that, practice goes pretty smoothly, and it’s only when they call it a day that Mark crash-lands on the floor next to Johnny, who is leaning against the glass of the mirror with his head tipped back, face pensive. 

“You okay, dude?”

Mark finds himself slipping into English more often than not lately when it comes to talking to Johnny. It happens gradually, and he doesn’t expect it to happen but it does and he just pretty much rolls with it since Johnny rolls with it, too. It grants them some modicum of privacy that they didn’t agree they needed but need anyway.

Johnny doesn’t say anything, just nods once. 

Why do they keep brushing each other off? 

“I’d ask if you wanna go for a drive but I don’t think you’d be able to get us there without passing out, hyung,” Mark says quietly, staring out at the floor in front of them. 

“Yeah, gonna have to pass on that,” Johnny says. “But maybe we can like order in tteokbokki and just hang out in your room?” 

Mark smiles at that, glad for the company and the fact that they’re just heading for home. 

Later, when Johnny slips into his room, shower-fresh with his hair still sort of dripping into the neckline of his t-shirt and a bag of piping hot tteokbokki, they talk about the comeback, and Mark’s coming departure for the next leg of the SuperM concert. 

Mark asks about Johnny’s bad mood earlier, and Johnny instead says, “I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” and Mark knows he’s only partly teasing him. Whatever it is that Johnny can’t talk about, Mark wonders how long it will take. 

Johnny probably wonders that about Mark, as well. 

—-

It’s freezing on Valentine's weekend, the temperature dropping to the negatives when Johnny and Mark drive up to their spot again, and Mark wonders at that, at how they have a spot in the city, wondered at how Mark seems to be the only one he invites out for these drives to this particular cliff when everyone else gets a ride to places in the city that they look over at. 

They step out of the car. It’s around 10 again at Mark’s last glance to his phone before he locks it and shoves it into the pocket of his giant puffy coat. 

“Jesus, it’s freezing,” Johnny exclaims, full-body shivering. “Maybe we should stay in the car, Mark.”

But Mark is staring up at the streetlamp and sees the flurries fall under the light. He watches a snowflake make its way gracefully from the sky and down onto the ground. 

He wonders what Johnny would do if he were to tell him right now what he feels, what it is that’s been eating him up slowly over the course of the last couple of months. 

“Mark?” Johnny asks, his teeth clattering in the cold. 

“Johnny-hyung,” Mark says, voice raised a bit over the sudden gust of wind. “Have you ever fallen in love?”

Johnny is thoughtful, frowning against the biting breeze as they both half-sit, half-stand against the hood of his car. 

“I think I’ve come close,” Johnny replies. “Once or twice. But I wouldn’t be able to tell you for sure. Why?” 

Mark glances at him, and then away. 

“I think I’m ready to talk about it now,” Mark says. 

“Okay dude, that’s great, but,” Johnny says, standing up fully. “Not out here, man. It’s too cold. I’ll turn the heater up.”

They pull open the doors to the Kia at the same time, and Johnny has his hands on the warm gust of wind from the vents by the time Mark shuts his door. 

He’s nervous, which is to be expected. 

The silence is deafening, even with the soft whirr of the heating on blast. 

“You wanna do this with or without background music?” Johnny teases gently, scanning through his iTunes. 

Mark holds his hand out for the phone, searches for Joji, and just lets it play. 

He has no idea how he’s supposed to even start this conversation, but he knows he needs to get it off his chest already. 

“I didn’t expect to fall in love at twenty years old,” Mark says, staring out past the windshield, past the city. “Like, sure, I’d wanted to know what an actual relationship felt like but what we do doesn’t exactly give us the freedom to have a ‘normal relationship’.” 

Mark makes air quotes with his fingers. 

Johnny remains quiet, and makes Mark carry on. 

“Johnny-hyung, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” Mark says. “I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with anyone, and instead I went and caught feelings for you.” 

There isn’t any sharp inhale, no recoil, no shock or anger from Johnny, so Mark hazards a glance at him, and Johnny is looking at him with soft eyes. 

“C-can you please say something?” Mark says sadly. 

He picks at the stray thread that’s sticking out from his jeans, then at the puffy material of his padded jacket. He can’t stop fidgeting. 

Johnny reaches over, takes the hand that’s ripping up the thread by Mark’s left thigh, and gently takes Mark’s hand in his. 

“What do you mean by ‘feelings’?” Johnny asks, his thumb drawing small circles over Mark’s hand. 

Mark can’t stop staring at how the digit strokes over his skin. 

“You don’t know how much I miss you when you’re not around, hyung,” Mark says. “I mean, sure, I can do the interviews on my own now, but I mean it’s not the same when we’re not in the same like, country, you know?” 

“I miss you too, when you’re not around,” Johnny replies. “But then isn’t that always the case when one of us has to go?” 

Mark nods, and thinks about the longing. 

It’s always the longing. 

“Sure,” Mark says. “But with you it’s different.”

“Different how?” Johnny’s got his wrist slung over the steering wheel. His face is bare, his eyes more hooded than usual, his hair tucked under the beanie he’d swiped from Yuta on the way out. 

Johnny’s really going to make him say it then, say everything. 

Mark thinks, yeah, he could do that. 

“I remember the first time I wanted to kiss you,” Mark says, trying to dig up whatever confidence he manages to muster up whenever he’s on stage instead of retreating the way he sort of wants to do right now. “It was last year, right after my birthday, when we all had dinner and I watched you laughing at something Taeyong-hyung had said and then you’d looked at me.” 

Mark’s palm is starting to sweat, but at least his heart’s calming down. Johnny doesn’t seem disgusted by him, in any case, so Mark figures he’ll take it. 

“You have feelings for me?” Johnny clarifies, gently pulling his hand away so that he can turn in his seat to pillow his head on his bent arm. 

“Yeah,” Mark says. “Is that okay?” 

“What do you mean by ‘okay’? Okay with me? Okay with the public?” Johnny replies, his voice still soft. 

“I don’t care what the public or the company thinks right now,” Mark says. “I only care about what you think.” 

“If you’re asking me if I’m going to avoid you over this, the answer is no, I’m not,” Johnny says. “If you’re asking me how I feel about it, the answer is that you alluded to being in love with me and I don’t know if that’s accurate, because I love you, Mark, I always have, but I don’t know what kind of love that is _now_ , and I don’t know what it is relative to yours.” 

Mark nods, knows that this is the best he could have hoped for. Johnny could have brushed him off, could have shot him down. He wonders if that would make this easier, though, than whatever this is between them now. 

“I didn’t even know you liked boys, Markie,” Johnny says, and does it again. Reaches out to stroke over Mark’s neck. Mark’s glad Johnny isn’t acting apprehensive around him. He doesn’t know how he’d handle it if he did. 

“Yeah well, thanks I guess for being my gay awakening, hyung,” Mark says, laughing. 

“I am?” Johnny says. “I’m honored. I really am.” 

Mark smacks him on the arm, and Johnny pulls away to yell “ow” dramatically. Mark thinks he deserves it. 

The track ends and another one begins, Joji’s _Run_ playing, and they just fiddle on their phones for a while, checking the group chat, before Johnny’s voice cuts through the music. 

“You said you wanted to kiss me?” Johnny asks, his gaze fixed on his hand on the wheel. 

Mark swallows, and says, “Yeah.” 

Johnny turns to face him, his gaze piercing like he’s trying to read Mark, trying to find something in his expression that Mark hasn’t said out loud yet. 

“Do you still want to?” 

Mark has no idea where this is going, but his answer is simple. 

“Yeah, I do,” Mark says. “But I don’t want your pity, man. I’ll get over it.” 

Johnny glances at Mark’s lips, and Mark feels it like hot water over his body when Johnny’s tongue darts out to lick his own lips. 

“Would you believe me if I told you I wanted it, too?” Johnny asks, and Mark feels the air leave his lungs. 

Mark is dumbstruck, but Johnny is waiting. He’s serious. 

“I mean,” Mark says. “If we both want it.” 

“I want it, yes,” Johnny says. “And you want it, right?” 

Mark nods. He nods again. 

Johnny reaches out across the schism of the handbrake and the little cup that he keeps near it filled with stray coins and gas receipts, reaches out as Mark meets him halfway, and cups Mark’s face in his hands before Johnny’s soft lips land on Mark’s. 

His entire body bends into it, this sweet relief, this longing coming to a head when they kiss, soft wet lips between Mark’s own, slow and lazy, their breathing heavy. 

On the windshield, outside and around them, it begins to rain. 

Inside, the windows fog up. If anyone were to see them now, they’d be able to tell that there were two people getting hot and heavy in the car. 

Distantly, Mark thinks about that scene from Titanic, before Johnny’s tongue sliding against his brings him back to reality, grounds him back to the inside of Johnny’s car. Johnny’s got his right hand cradling the back of Mark’s head that he’s got tilted back.

Something small and broken is ripped from Mark’s lips when Johnny kisses the corner of his mouth, the mole on his cheek, the cut of his jaw. 

“The first time I wanted to kiss you,” Johnny says, words warm against Mark’s cheek. “Can you guess?” 

Mark can’t believe Johnny is making him think right now, but he tries. Closes his eyes while Johnny brings his lips to Mark’s neck again. 

“Right now?” Mark tries, breathless. 

“Nope, try again,” Johnny says, soft kiss to Mark’s lips. 

“When we filmed the New York JCC?” Mark tries again. 

“Mmmm,” Johnny says. “After I put the cameras away, and caught you looking around at Times Square. I thought, wouldn’t it be crazy if I kissed you right there without giving a shit that everyone could see us?” 

“Bold, Johnny-hyung,” Mark says, before taking Johnny’s lips and sliding his over them again. 

Mark wants to devour him. It is all he wants to do, drown in the rain and drown in Johnny’s kisses and drown out everything else that isn’t that. His head is spinning, his lips starting to tingle as Johnny’s breathing starts to get ragged, and Mark knows he’s not the only one who wants, not the only one who wants to be consumed. 

\---

The drive home feels like time doesn’t move inside the vehicle. The rain continues to pour, and visibility is poor so Johnny drives slowly. 

His hand doesn’t leave Mark’s for most of the ride, only doing so to shift gears. 

“What are we doing?” Mark had asked, after Johnny had pulled away to catch his breath, and shifted around in his seat. Mark hadn’t missed how Johnny’s pants had tented. 

“Taking things slow,” Johnny had replied. 

“Do you like me?” Mark had needed to hear it. 

“I do,” Johnny had replied. “I do have feelings for you, Mark. But we’ve got too much at stake to rush into this so--”

“So we’ll take it slow,” Mark had finished. 

\---

They get caught by Taeyong nearly two weeks later, after dancing around each other and the rest of the group since their first kiss. 

Taeyong isn’t angry, but he’s worried. He’s always worried. 

It isn’t even anything too scandalous, though it is enough to warrant Taeyong texting both Mark and Johnny to come to his room after he catches them kissing on the balcony. 

They sit on Taeyong’s bed while Taeyong sits hunched over on his ergonomic office chair, his chin resting on his closed fist. 

“Yong,” Johnny begins. “I’m sorry we were reckless.”

Taeyong sighs. 

“You know that anyone could have seen that, right?” Taeyong sighs. “We don’t know who could be hanging out outside with a tele lens pointed at our dorm, and you’re both out there putting the rest of the group on the line.” 

Mark’s frozen on the spot. Taeyong isn’t shouting at them, but he kind of wishes he was. He’d take anything other than this restrained sort of dejection. 

“How long have you two been dating?” Taeyong asks, and it’s a little sad, like he’s hurt that he wasn’t looped into this new development. 

“Two weeks, hyung,” Mark says, refusing to have Johnny take the brunt of this even if he knows that Johnny wants nothing but to face it for the both of them. “I’m sorry we didn’t say anything. We’re still--”

“Figuring it out,” Johnny continues. 

It is then that Mark realises that neither of them had flinched when Taeyong had used the word ‘dating’. Not ‘fooling around’, not anything more casual than that. 

Taeyong leans back, runs his hand over his face. Mark knows how overworked their leader is. He kind of wishes that he had found time to confide in Taeyong what had been going on with him, all those weeks where they were stuck together without the rest of 127, but Mark hadn’t wanted to add to his load.

As if it did any good, now that they’re sat here in Taeyong’s room anyway. 

“I’m happy for you both,” Taeyong says. “Don’t think that I’m not. You’re good together, and I can’t see you being with other people apart from each other. But you have to be more careful.” 

Johnny moves from the bed to the floor, rests his knees on the small carpet he’d gotten Taeyong from IKEA, and draws up the full length of his torso to envelop Taeyong into a hug that their leader leans into, promptly sagging against Johnny. 

Mark had admittedly always thought it would be them, and part of what he’d had to grapple with when he was figuring out what it was he felt about Johnny was the belief that not only would Johnny not like him back, but that he’d have to see Johnny be in love with someone else. 

“We’ll be more careful, Yongie,” Johnny says, rubbing his hands over Taeyong’s back, and then pulling away. 

“I know you will,” Taeyong says. “Who else knows?”

“Just you, we think,” Mark says. “Unless anyone else has noticed but hasn’t said anything.” 

“Tell the rest,” Taeyong says. “If you’re ready, let them know. They’ll keep you safe, catch you when you’re slipping.” 

Mark’s hands clam up. He’s going to come out to the group, and in effect, end up coming out to Dream and to WayV, and maybe even the rest of SuperM. His heart starts to race. He’s only just figuring things out, and he lets out a shaky breath that Johnny hears, which has Johnny instantly reaching for his hand. 

“Hey,” Johnny says. “Hey, follow my breathing.”

So Mark does, takes a long inhale, holds it, and then breathes out through his mouth slowly. 

“Just to 127 first,” Taeyong says. “Slowly, it doesn’t have to be a giant meeting. We just need them on our team, okay? You can trust them.” 

Taeyong says this with full conviction, and it’s heartening to know that Taeyong has this much faith in their group, that he knows the team well enough that they’ll protect Johnny and Mark when push comes to shove. 

\---

Mark finds that nothing much about them changes, not really. 

They act the same in front of everyone else, the same sort of giggly ribbing that people are used to. 

Yuta pouts when they tell him they’re together, and says that it’s not fair, that he should get to kiss Mark too when he wants, and Johnny just laughs because he knows Yuta isn’t serious, and it’s not like it stops Yuta from pressing wet smooches on Mark’s cheek whenever he wants to, anyway. 

Doyoung spends an hour lecturing Johnny about how he’s going to bust Johnny’s kneecaps if they end up being petty and fighting over dumb shit. He insists that if they argue, they need to call him in to mediate, which Johnny takes slight offense at, considering that Johnny himself usually plays the role of mediator. 

Haechan teases Johnny endlessly about his choice in romantic endeavor while he keeps Johnny up at night to kick his ass in-game. Johnny rolls with it, and then later tells Mark just how pouty Haechan had been. 

“I think he might be a little jealous of me,” Johnny says, later when Mark is curled against him in Mark’s bed. 

“Mmm,” Mark hums, pulling Johnny’s arm over his belly and pressing his back up against Johnny’s chest. “Hyuck’s all bark and no bite.” 

Later, during the weekend, in the lull right before their comeback is set to drop, they go out for a drive. 

Johnny regales Mark with a story of a play he’d acted in back in high school, and Mark cringes from the awful attempt at a British accent that Johnny puts on before they pull up to their spot. 

Their spot. 

Spring is around the corner for them, the last vestiges of winter lending way to slightly warmer temperatures and the shedding of their padded jackets. 

The sun is just about to set. It's the first time they’re here this early. 

“You okay, Mark?” Johnny asks, reaching out to tuck Mark’s new cherry-red hair behind his ear. Mark’s just glad they didn’t give him a ramen perm again. 

“Yeah,” Mark says. “It’s been a while since we were here.”

“Not too long,” Johnny says, turning the engine off and unbuckling from his seat. Johnny opens the door and steps out, climbs on top of the hood again, and waits for Mark to join him. Johnny’s speakers sit in between the two of them. He plays Joji again, like the last time.

“If we weren’t idols, what do you think would have happened to us?” Mark asks, both his arms folded under his head, eyes up at a massive cloud shaped like an elephant. 

“I dunno,” Johnny says. “We might have never met.”

Mark shudders, full-body shakes, cringes, and looks at Johnny. 

“I don’t wanna imagine that, then,” Mark says. It makes Johnny smile. 

“Hey Mark,” Johnny says softly. He sits up and places his hand on Mark’s chest, resting right about his heart. “Will you be my boyfriend?” 

Mark stares up at him. He thought that was what they already were, but hearing it is different. He feels giddy and stupid, and the smile on his face can’t seem to be restrained. 

“You want me to be your boyfriend?” Mark fires back, and his smile is all teeth and gums and unfettered. 

“Yes, Mark Lee,” Johnny says, rolling his eyes. “No idea why, but I do want that.”

Mark yelps, says, “Hey! That was mean!” before Johnny laughs and taps Mark’s ear twice with his index finger, a code they’d come up with when they wanted to tell each other how they feel in public. 

“Yeah,” Mark says, breathless. “Yeah, Johnny, I wanna be your boyfriend.”

Easy, like all things between them. 

Johnny’s smile is radiant, and Mark’s heart thuds steadily in his chest. 

“I’d kiss you right now if I could,” Johnny says. Mark wonders if the wind will carry his voice. 

“I know you would,” Mark replies, and then looks back up at the clouds. The elephant has blown away. Now it’s just sheets. 

“Are you gonna tell your parents?” Johnny asks as he stretches out again, back on the windshield. 

Mark stares at the pink and purple in the sky, and wonders at that. How many times will he be explaining himself, he wonders. Will his parents take it badly? Will they be happy for him? Will they make him leave the group?

“I want to,” Mark says. “But I want you with me.” 

“Oh man, Eomma Lee’s gonna murder me,” Johnny says. 

“As if your mom won’t narrow her eyes at me when you tell her,” Mark says, trying to imagine what Johnny’s parents will say. 

“My mom loves you,” Johnny says. “My parents love you. They’re gonna be happy for us.” 

“You think so?” Mark says, his left hand just brushing against Johnny’s right. 

“I know so,” Johnny replies, his eyes beginning to close. 

Mark stares at his profile again, like he does every day now. 

Their relationship is a small seed yet, built on years of knowing each other, and learning everything else that they don’t know yet. They live their lives in the public eye, more and more now that they’ve started to really gain momentum both in this country and abroad. 

But for now they steal time and space and hold them hostage so that for a few hours at a time, all there is is Johnny and Mark, no cameras, no expectations, no putting up any fronts. 

“Mark,” Johnny says, his eyes remaining closed, a smile on his lips. “You’re staring again.” 

“Yeah, and what about it?” Mark says back, turning on his side to face his boyfriend (his boyfriend!!!) properly. 

“Nothing,” Johnny says, his voice teasing, his pinky linking with Mark’s own. “Nothing at all.” 

**Author's Note:**

> _If you've been waitin' for fallin' in love  
>  Babe, you don't have to wait on me  
> 'Cause I've been aimin' for Heaven above  
> But an angel ain't what I need  
> Not anyone, you're the one  
> More than fun, you're the Sanctuary  
> 'Cause what you want is what I want  
> Sincerity_
> 
> I'm on hiatus on stan twt, but you can find me at [twt](https://twitter.com/johnnyseo_paws) :)


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